The present invention relates generally to online systems and more particularly to bidding on search results for targeting users in an online system.
Traditional advertisers used focus groups and demographic data to gain an understanding of how to design and implement effective ad campaigns. For example, a sports drink advertiser may use a random sampling of a target population, such as 18-35 year-old men, to determine whether an ad would be effective. However, this approach to advertising targeting may lead to inefficient ad spending because advertisements may be presented to viewers that are not interested in sports or exercise, for example.
In recent years, online systems, particularly social networking systems, have made it easier for users to share their interests and preferences in real-world concepts, such as their favorite movies, musicians, celebrities, soft drinks, hobbies, sports teams, and activities. These interests may be declared by users in user profiles and may also be inferred by social networking systems. Users can also interact with these real-world concepts through multiple communication channels on social networking systems, including interacting with pages on the social networking system, sharing interesting articles about causes and issues with other users on the social networking system, and commenting on actions generated by other users on objects external to the social networking system. Actions performed on objects by users on external websites, such as playing gaming applications, listening to music-streaming services, and reading document sharing systems, may also be captured by the social networking system. Users of the social networking system frequently search for various phrases in the social networking system, such as their favorite celebrities, restaurants to dine at, and karaoke bars. In real time, a search engine on the social networking system may return search results, such as content item posts, users, entities, pages, groups, events, and applications in the social networking system, that are relevant to the search queries. Tools have not been developed to enable advertisers to target user searches in a social networking system.
Specifically, information available on social networking systems about users' interactions with a real time search engine on the social networking system has not been made available to advertisers as targeting criteria. Because users may perform thousands of searches on objects within and external to the social networking system on a daily basis, enabling advertisers to target these interactions provides a valuable opportunity for advertisers that seek to drive traffic and increase engagement with their websites and brands. However, existing systems have not provided efficient mechanisms of enabling advertisers to target users based on user searches.